Unspoken Language
by eevilalice
Summary: Theo's silences frustrate and fascinate Draco.


Written for **rarepair_shorts** on Livejournal. Prompt: hear the silence.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter or any of its character and do not profit from this story.

X

Draco always knows when Theo is in the room. Not by the sounds he makes, but by those he doesn't. It's never the things he says, the sound of his voice, that alerts Draco to Theo's presence, but the things _not_ said. The silence in a room always thickens when Theo enters it, like snow insulating a forest.

Draco's ears sometimes prickle or pulse with the quiet Theo brings, as Draco lies in bed with his curtains drawn, attempting sleep, or sits in the library doing school work. The only thing he still hears is his own heart in his chest or in his ear when he presses it against the pillow.

X

When the Slytherin Common Room is teeming with students, or the Great Hall's a din of welcome feast-level chatter, Theo comes encased in his bubble of silence like the embodiment of _Silencio_. Conversations continue, but Draco never fails to mark where the dark-haired boy sits, nose in book even while eating.

Draco is used to holding forth. He's used to hearing Crabbe and Goyle's grunts of agreement or the enthusiastic buffering of Pansy or Blaise's supporting opinions, their snide insults directed at common enemies. If there's silence, it is respectful.

Theo's is different somehow. _Dismissive._ Amused, even.

Theo's silence is critical.

X

Draco increasingly seeks out Theo as a partner in classes. They've only got a couple together since, unlike Draco, Theo takes more challenging courses across the board instead of coasting through easier ones.

Instead of verbal approval, Draco finds himself eager for Theo's wry smiles and snickers. For all the disparity in their degrees of loquaciousness, they share the same sense of humor. They both roll their eyes at the Amortentia demonstration and Slughorn's insistence upon the supposed danger of the potion.

"About as dangerous as an Unforgivable from Longbottom," Draco mutters. Theo's mouth quirks, and Draco's whole face lights up like he's just caught the Snitch before Potter. It's his first genuine smile of the year.

X

Draco can't help but cater to Theo's silence, whispering when they're together working on a project so as not to blast the quiet apart.

"We add two more fiddleheads, stir clockwise, and wait twenty minutes, right?" Draco confirms in hushed tones, hand clutching the furled ferns-to-be (never-to-be, now) hovering over the cauldron.

Theo nods and readjusts his glasses; the wire frames keep sliding down his nose as he makes notes on their progress.

Draco stares. The potion bubbles obnoxiously, and he leans in closer to Theo, just in case he says something. He wouldn't want to miss it.

Theo blinks at him over the top of his errant glasses, hazel eyes as still as his unopened mouth.

Draco reaches up and draws the frames from his face, slowly, and sets them on the table, never breaking eye contact. "They need to be fixed or something. Tightened."

But Theo just blinks and breathes; Draco can't hear them, but he can feel the warm puffs on his face, and suddenly he wants to grab Theo and shake words and sounds out of him. Instead, he closes the small gap he's left between them and presses his lips insistently against those that have remained so infuriatingly mute.

"_Mm!"_

Draco has finally shut up Theo's silence.

X

Draco has learned the language of Theo's silence. He thinks.

It's context, the look in his eyes (or not looking), the tightening of his jaw, the not-so-absent toying with his barely-long-enough-to-toy-with hair. Otherwise, Theo is as still as you might think someone as quiet as he is would be.

Theo's eyes follow him when he slips off to the Room of Requirement. When he returns to the dorm, Draco knows by the set of Theo's shoulders and the tension of his silence not to bother touching him.

In class, exhausted as the term wears on and his failures mount, Draco feels Theo's quiet envelop him like a blanket of feathers, light and soft. After, they go back to Draco's bed (everyone has learned never to bother him there), and Theo makes more sounds. Sometimes there are words, and Draco will remember every single one.

X

The night Draco is to finally complete his tasks, he lies sleeplessly in his bed, listening. His heart thumps in his throat like he's swallowed it and it's come back up. He can't sense Theo over the sound.

Changed, he approaches the door and hears a rustle. A bare, disused voice.

"Goodbye."


End file.
